I recently had the opportunity to interview Simon Powell and George Stoutenburgh of Axis Internet to get a better understanding of how a call center can make the leap from PBX to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and what advantages there are when a company makes such a change. Since this is a broad topic, I will cover this topic in a series of articles which will all be archived under Telephony for Call Centers.
Axis Internet is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that focuses on providing businesses with VoIP. I have worked with the Axis team before, and I know from experience that they provide a highly reliable service. If you have questions about VoIP technology, or about the service Axis provides, I recommend you give them a call.
Question: Since my knowledge of telephony is limited, my first question was: How can VoIP save my call center money?
Answer: VoIP eliminates the need for a PBX. If your PBX costs $10,000 (US), your maintenance is probably costing about $5,000 (US) per year. VoIP can also eliminate the long distance charges between company offices, because phone calls are made over your internet connection.
Question: What other advantages does this technology have over PBX telephones systems?
Answer: There are a host of advantages, because no matter how fully featured a hardware PBX is, something will always be left out. Even the most feature-rich PBX will always fail to anticipate the creativity of the customer. Here are a two very important advantages:
1. Each end user can update their own forwarding, and voicemail settings. The interface is very user friendly. There is no middle man.
2. Once the software is loaded on your laptop, and you have an account setup, you can go anywhere and still get all of your phone calls. You can be at home or on the other side of the world, and your phone number remains the same. This is not just a work-at-home solution but also a solution for travelers.
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